Gramsci and the conditions of successful revolution : organicity, intellectuals and the new industrial relations

Abstract

This thesis seeks to demonstrate the cogency of Gramsci's political thought for the analysis of the significance of contemporary capitalist modes of labour organisation with respect to the possibility of successful revolution. It does so, first, by reconstructing the development of Gramsci's political thinking in terms of its theoretical and strategic reflections on the conditions of successful revolution and, second, by showing how Gramsci's mature reflections provide the tools for a socialist analysis of capitalist modes of labour organisation both as schemes for the depoliticisation of the working class and as providing conditions for the development of the 'organicity' of the working class. The former task is performed through an historical construction of Gramsci's philosophy of praxis which focuses on both the theoretical and strategic dimensions of its development ; the latter through a theoretical reflection on industrial relations and the sociology of class and an empirical case-study of working class labour organisation in Germany.

Chapters 1-5 argue that Gramsci's political though develops through three stages. The first stage, i.e. his theoretical and strategic thinking involving the introduction of the factor council revolutionary organisation was, at the end of 1920, proved to be insufficient to claim a socialist victory. Gramsci's reflection on this failure during the Biennio Rosso period led him to adopt the Comintern's Bolshevisation strategy and United Front policy which were the foundation of his theoretical and strategic thinking from 1922 until his arrest (mid-Gramsci or the second stage). As the Bolshevisation strategy is not based sufficiently on the revolutionary sphere of production, Gramsci's search for a new revolutionary strategy continues even after the Lyon Theses. His mature social and political theory, i.e., the third stage - discussed in the Prison Notebooks - is a response to his view concerning the strategic inadequacy of his thinking in the second stage.

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